One way to show just how nerdy some characters are is to have them idly debating who would win in a hypothetical fight between two fictional characters. The debate can be made even more pointless and absurd if the characters are non-violent or not even owned by the same company.

Daring Do: Page and Header discuss assorted mythological mashups, like who would win in a fight between between Nightmare Moon and Tirek. They're still at it in the Expanded Universe, adding Fuergott, Krastos and the Assembler into the mix.

The Other Guys has a really quite hilarious scene where the two protagonists debate over a fight between a tuna and a lion.

Related example in Fight Club, where the two main characters are discussing which historical figure they'd like to get into a fistfight with and how they think they'd do. The one favors Abraham Lincoln for his reach and wiry strength. The other cites Gandhi.

Literature

Parodied in the Diogenes Club story "The Gypsies in the Wood", where Uncle Sat's Faerie stories have an insanely complicated class structure as an essential part of the text, leading to kids have similar arguments about orders of precedence.

Animorphs had Jake and Marco arguing over Batman vs Spider-Man, the point of contention being whether or not Spider-Man's webbing would slide off Batman's body armor.

Live Action TV

Apart from the combatants being real-life people, this trope is the entire point of Deadliest Warrior.

One episode had the characters reworking the battle of Gettysburg with additional units ranging from real-world military units to Hindu gods. The humor value of the discussion was ruined somewhat by a lack of research that had Sheldon accepting Leonard's spurious argument that Middle-earth's Orcs "are magic" and so would defeat Superman, who is vulnerable to magic.

In the Saturday Night Live recurring sketch "The Superfans", the guys sit around discussing who would win things, with the answer always being "Da Bears!" (Or if it's basketball, "Da Bulls!") Or complete non-sequiturs like Mike Ditka vs. a hurricane.

Happens a few times on Corner Gas. Davis debates with a few people about who would win if Star Wars fought Star Trek. Also, Hank apparently has these types of debates with himself inside his head, such as who would win if a werewolf fought Wanda.

One episode in the second season of Game of Thrones has two redshirts having a humorous debate regarding who is the best knight in the realm, and their discussion is a Fandom Nod to debates that fans of A Song of Ice and Fire have had.

This is a Running Gag on The Finder. The hangout for the main characters has a chalkboard specifically for hypothetical debates. See the page image for one example.

There is a small running gag on NCIS about the rest of the team talking about who would win in a fight-resident Memetic Badass Jethro Gibbs and such crazy proposals as The Terminator and Batman... and Memetic Badass that he is, the rest of the team puts the odds on Gibbs.

One episode of Drake & Josh has the duo arguing who would win in a fight between Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. Helen sides with Drake about it being Lohan, saying that Duff can't take a punch.

Warehouse13 had two nerdy characters discussing what sounded like a complex topic but was actually about whether Vulcans or Klingons were stronger. One one of them was able to calculate that Vulcans were 47% stronger.

In Flash vs. Arrow, Barry/The Flash is infected with a Hate Plague so Oliver/Arrow is called in to handle the situation. During the fight, Cisco and Caitlin insist that Barry would win since he has superpowers, while Diggle maintains that Oliver's experience and superior tactical abilities would win out. The fight basically ends in a tie.

Music

The song "Hot Girl in the Comic Shop" by Tripod devolves into an debate about who would win a fight between Spider-Man and the Hulk.

Other Sites

This is a staple question in Yahoo! Answers "Comics & Animation" section.

ScrewAttack has Death Battle, a web series involving one-on-one matchups against characters all over the realm of fiction.

Star Destroyer Dot Net: Who would win in a fight between the Enterprise and a Star Destroyer? That would be the Stardestroyer of course.

As part of the idle banter between your squadmates in the first game, Wrex is fond of asking them who they think would win if they took on Commander Shepard in a fight.

In the Mass Effect 3 DLC "Citadel", your squadmates argue over who of their two Krogan members would win in a fight: Wrex, a thousand-year-old battlemaster, or Grunt, a genetically engineered perfect warrior.

Brothers in Arms: Allen, Garnett and Leggett have a Superman vs. Batman argument.

Shin Super Robot Wars: While Domon Kasshu is busy chasing Master Asia and the Devil Gundam in Scenario 33 of the Earth Route, the rest of the group lightly place bets on whether the God Gundam could kick the R-1's butt.

The Fourth Wall Mail SlotTwinkin' Out With Red Mage ran several columns dedicated to Red Mage answering "who would win" fights suggested by readers, starting Twinkin' Out 7: Superfight Spectacular. Reader suggestions ran the gambit anywhere from comic book heroes and villains to real life celebrities and historical figures, including Lincoln versus John Wilkes Booth and Gandhi versus Martin Luther King Jr. The feature concluded its 2004 run with a Superfight elimination tournament that pitted Wolverine against Link (the latter of which had just defeated a three-man team of Pyro, Superman, and God to reach the finals) in the final match which remains unconcluded five years later.

And don't forget the Flash animations featuring matchups between the webcomic's characters (removed from the official website, but still available here.

In the early Homestar Runner cartoon Interview Strong Bad asks Homestar who'd win in a fight between The Cheat and Strong Sad. Homestar says that even if The Cheat had both hands duct taped behind his back, and duct tape over his eyes, and Strong Sad had a spear, he would put his money on The Cheat.

In one episode Bart asks Milo, the owner of a new comic book shop in town, who would win: The Thang or the Mulk. Milo asks Bart what he thinks. Bart is impressed that a comic shop owner would encourage discussion rather than pontificating.

In "Marge vs. the Monorail" when Lyle Langley asks Lisa's class if they have any questions, one kid asks him if Superman could outrun the Flash. When Langley specifies he wants questions related to the monorail, another kid asks him if the monorail could outrun the Flash.

Invoked and double subverted in Regular Show episode "Replaced". Mordecai and Rigby try to prevent their replacements from finishing their work by having them debate who would win in a fight between a two-headed dinosaur and a robotic Bigfoot. They both agreed that a robotic Bigfoot would win. Then Mordecai gets into a debate with them on why a two-headed dinosaur would win. It still didn't stop them from working.

The Venture Bros.: Henchmen 21 and 24 debate who would win in a fistfight between Lizzie Borden and Anne Frank.

In the Freakazoid! episode "Freak-a-Panel" among the non-Freakazoid-related questions Freakazoid is asked at a Q&A panel is "If Superman fought Fred Flintstone, who would win?"

Freakazoid: I would guess Superman. Unless Barney Rubble snuck up and hit him with a kryptonite club or something.

Real Life

In an example suspiciously similar to the Stand by Me example above, author Thomas Harris said two guys were arguing on his Web site over who would win, Hannibal Lecter or Mighty Mouse, and one guy said Lecter because Mighty Mouse wasn't real.

Early Christian missionaries in Scandinavia claimed that one stumbling block in converting the Norse to Christianity was that they kept asking if Jesus could beat Thor in a fight.

A modern variation points out which one was nailed to a cross and which one has a hammer.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy